Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), known to be loyalists of former President Trump, ripped into Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley on Saturday during Trump’s first official campaign rally.
Joining the former president in Waco, Texas, the lawmakers singled out Haley, who previously served as Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, criticizing her for her foreign policy agenda and a perceived lack of appeal.
“Nikki Haley says that we must kick all of the world’s bullies with heels,” Gaetz said. “But we cannot go kicking and screaming around the globe, starting new wars behind every Middle Eastern sand dune as Nikki Haley would have us do.”
“So, Nikki Haley can keep clicking her heels,” he continued. “What we know is that President Donald Trump will bring America’s enemies to heel.”
Greene also dismissed Haley as a serious candidate, claiming that no other Republican has a “list of names” like Trump does.
“Here’s what we know about President Trump,” she told reporters from the conservative outlet Right Side Broadcasting Network. “President Trump has a list of names, and no one else has that.”
“Ron DeSantis doesn’t have that. Nikki Haley, or whoever she is, she doesn’t have anything like that,” Greene said, also digging into the Florida governor, who has not yet launched a bid despite rumors of a potential run. “No one else knows how to clean out the swamp like President Trump.”
Despite his increase in attacks against DeSantis in recent weeks — which has put pressure on Republican lawmakers, who will eventually have to choose a side —Trump has been relatively tame when it comes to Haley’s bid. Last month he responded to her official launch with “the more the merrier.”
“I’m glad she’s running,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News at the time. “I want her to follow her heart — even though she made a commitment that she would never run against who she called the greatest president of her lifetime.”
Trump, Haley and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy are the only candidates to enter the race on the Republican side thus far. Though others — such as DeSantis, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former Vice President Mike Pence and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie — have been floated as potential contenders.
While the rally in Waco corresponded with the 30th anniversary of the federal siege in the area that disbanded cult leader David Koresh’s compound, Trump’s team insisted that the location and timing of the event had nothing to do with the event.
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